This will be an interesting answer. Thanks for posting MizLizzie.

I don't use laundry pods and have never tried them so I don't have any personal experience.

One of my neighbor's tenants at a rental property uses Tide pods. Last time I was there to swap-out the washer he provides (it had developed a couple fatal problems not related to pods), I noticed a gray residue on the machine's agitator and inner drum. The tenant probably uses one pod per load, which isn't enough in an "old-style" deep-fill agitator washer on a full load (she has 3 kids in the house so lots of laundry). I advised her to use 2, maybe even 3 pods on very large loads of heavy-soiled items. City water at that location is pretty hard.

The orange-ish gelatinous residue was in the toploader that my nephew and his GF use, with Tide pods. The residue wasn't directly in the pump (although there could very well have been some in it), it was in the bottom of the outer tub around the drain outlet where residual water remains. Most of the rest of the bottom of the outer tub also had a thin layer of hard, black residue which did not clean off very well. It doesn't appear to be mold (not slimy or typical mold color). I can't say that's directly related to pods, it could be caused by the local water conditions where he lives ... but could also be the water conditions reacting with the pods. I don't know long they've been using pods.

Interesting. I have to wonder, too, if this could be temperature related? For those of us who wash on hot often, I wonder if less buildup occurs? Hmm. Thanks for sharing, dadoes.